derly, forgetting all the
bitter thoughts she had once had.

"Oh, Marie, dear, I love you--I love you still. Of course I forgive
you."

Then Beth told her all the story of the past, and of that night when she
had learned that Clarence did not love her, of her wounded vanity, her
mistaken belief in the genuineness of her own love for him, and her
gradual awakening to the fact that it was not love after all.

"Then it wasn't Mr. Grafton at all who made the trouble?" interrupted
Marie.

"Mr. Grafton? Why, no! What could he have to do with it?"

"Oh, nothing. We thought, at least Clarence thought, he made the
trouble."

Beth looked mystified, but Marie only continued in a softened tone:

"I am afraid you don't know your own heart, dear Beth. You will come
together again, and all will be forgotten."

"No, Marie, never! The past was folly. All is better as it is."

A pained look that Beth could not fathom drifted across Marie's brow.
"You think so now, but you will change," she said.

A knock at the door interrupted them just then, as Mrs. Owen announced a
friend of Beth's.

Marie kissed her gently.

"Good-bye, Beth," she said in her sweet low voice, and there was a
tender sadness in her dark eyes. Beth did not know its meaning at the
time, but a day was coming when she would know.

Beth saw nothing more of Clarence during his few days in the city. She
wondered sometimes if Marie had seen him, but though they saw each other
occasionally during the rest of the winter, neither of them mentioned
his name.

That week had seemed eventful in Beth's eyes, but it was more eventful
even than she thought. The following Saturday, after tea, as Beth and
Mabel Clayton were going back upstairs, Beth had seated Mabel by force
on the first step of the second flight to tell her some funny little
story. Beth was in one of her merry moods that night. Beth was not a
wit, but she had her vein of mirth, and the girls used to say she was
growing livelier every day. The gas was not lighted in the hall, but
Beth had left her door open and the light shone out on the head of the
stairs. A moment later they started up with their arms about each
other's waist.

"Oh, Beth, I left that note-book down stairs. Wait, I'll bring it up to
you."

Beth waited, standing in the light as her friend scampered down again.
She heard the door of Marie's old room open, and a tall man stepped into
the hall, but as it was dark below she could not see